


The Curious Case of Nagachika Hideyoshi

by godcomplexfics (godtiercomplex)



Series: dysfunctional family funtimes [6]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: M/M, Unhealthy Relationships, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 08:02:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9712538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/godtiercomplex/pseuds/godcomplexfics
Summary: Haise never expected that someone like Hide would come to mean so much to him.In which; Haise gets a new editor for his first novel, Shuu is burning with jealousy, and the kids are torn between approval or disapproval of Hide’s whole possible facade.(Reposted due to Ao3 mishaps)





	

**Author's Note:**

> I started this a while ago, and then got really sad over Haise to the point where I was crying during a video call as I read the latest chapters so I went and hurried to finish this. 
> 
> I only started Tokyo Ghoul to see Shuu crying how did this happen to me. 
> 
> Hide is one of my favorite characters, and I would love to see him meeting Haise!

Haise wrote his first short story when he was twelve. Arima liked it so much he had it saved to his laptop’s hard drive and would brag to his co-workers that his son was going to be a real famous writer. His co-workers just thought that Haise probably needed help due to the subject matter. Arima had relayed all this to Akira while Haise had cooked them dinner one night, and after Akira read the story she sighed loudly.

“Please stop letting my--Haise--read novels like this. You’re going to ruin him.”

Haise hadn’t understood what she had meant when he was twelve, but then he’s twenty-years-old and his daug--chil--Saiko wants to buy a game called _The Suffering_ and he is so weak to her blue eyes that he caves even though she’s only ten. Thankfully, Tooru has no interest in things like this. Unfortunately, Arima does. He has to admit that the game is pretty good, even if it’s hilarious to see his father bent over a controller while Saiko instructs him on how best to play. It’s his family, he’s okay with it. And when Shirazu comes along, more horror games show up to frighten Tooru, and soon Akira makes them play only during the day.

He wrote his first publishable short story last year, and it’s only now showing up in the literary magazine he submitted it to in the late fall. Tsukiyama sees him reading over the magazine, and Haise honestly can’t help but feel something like pride when Tsukiyama praises his prose. That is he feels good until he remembers that Tsukiyama is a stalker, and that Haise shouldn’t feel anything when Tsukiyama says anything.

 _Welcome, Good Night_ has been haunting his dreams for years, so it’s satisfying to see other people enjoying it like he hoped. Arima buys five copies of the magazine and gives one to each member of their family. He’s not too sure he wants his children reading it, especially Tooru and more importantly Saiko with her readily acceptance of Arima sometimes showing up covered in blood (if she left the house more often he’d be worried about missing neighborhood cats).

He gets another story published, with a larger magazine this time, and they tell him that if he has any ideas that they’re interested. He has a lot of ideas, but little time between college, the children and even Tsukiyama’s demands, that he puts them off. That is, until one day he wakes up in a cold sweat and starts writing, the words flowing from him easily and then he contacts them from the faded card they sent over months prior.

They send over a man named Hideyoshi Nagachika, who takes one look at Haise and says plainly: “You do not look like the type of man who should be writing this kind of stuff. You look too happy.”

It’s the start of a functioning relationship.

 

xxx

 

Haise is waiting for Nagachika at Anteikou and Hinami is there because she’s always there. She has her usual drink in front of her and she and Ayato, Touka’s brother who doesn’t like Haise much, are casually discussing things. Ayato is ignoring him. Haise can handle that, he would rather not get into a debate on how much his boyfriend sucks. He doesn’t have a boyfriend, he has a stalker, but there’s no use in telling that to Ayato, and he doesn’t want to explain that to Hinami who is under the delusion that he and Tsukiyama are a domesticated blissful match.

Tsukiyama had tried to kill her just the previous year, or had threatened to commit a murder-suicide or just, Haise honestly tries to block most of the memories out that related to anything to do with Tsukiyama. It would exhaust him if he grew half as interested in Tsukiyama as the man was obsessed with him. Better to not think about him.

“So, you’re really getting published, that’s so exciting, Sasaki-san,” Hinami says with a grin. He had let her read a few chapters from _The Dusk of Tanaka Taro_ as he was calling it and she had loved it. He had promised her a signed copy.

“Yes, Nagachika-san should be here soon with the next steps we’re taking.” Haise is early, but to his surprise, Nagachika is too. He introduces him to Hinami, and then Nagachika settles in when she leaves. He gets so caught up in Nagachika that he’s surprised when Touka refills his mug, and then Nagachika calls it a day and tells him that he’ll be bringing him corrections and suggestions next time they meet.

“Now,” Touka says, “That’s someone you should be dating.”

He wants to say that Touka is also his type, but he just sighs, and laughs, “I don’t have time to be dating anyone. I’m trying to get a book published!”

 

xxx

 

After the first round of edits are done, Haise invites Nagachika to his house to meet his family. The kids are on their manners, but wary. Arima is never on his manners, and knows more about Nagachika than Haise had wanted to know. From his birthday to his shoe size, to his family and what they’re like (nice, sweet, good people) to where he went to college.

Haise is surprised to hear that they went to the same college.

“I saw you around a bit, but never thought we’d have anything in common so I never said hi or anything,” Nagachika explains as he’s roped into playing _Final Fantasy XII_ with Saiko. Haise allows it as he lets that sink in. The other man is just a year older than him, and he seems so much older. He’s interesting in the way that normalcy has its appeal at times in Haise’s chaotic life. The kids can’t decide if they like or distrust him, and Haise is proud of them for not so eagerly swinging to his side.

And then Tsukiyama shows up. Tooru makes an attempt to keep him out of the house, but then Tsukiyama starts complaining loudly, and Haise can’t see a way for Nagachika and Tsukiyama not to meet so he gives in and tells Tooru to let him inside.

Tsukiyama is instantly on the defensive, his face tightening up, and it’s funny in a sad way how much Tsukiyama cares for him, but honestly they aren’t dating and he’s only agreed to let Tsukiyama see him sometimes and continue to stalk him as long as he follows the rules. His glaring at Nagachika isn’t breaking the number one rule, but Tsukiyama is starting to tremble a bit with rage as he sees the children cheerfully interacting with Nagachika in a way they never dare to do with him.

Arima handles Tsukiyama, because Haise would have just asked him to leave. Arima shows Tsukiyama more photos of Haise’s childhood, and Haise notices that when Nagachika calls it a night, he looks at Tsukiyama with a small frown.

 

xxx

 

“I don’t like him,” Tsukiyama says as Haise gets ready for bed. Haise doesn’t care if he’s waiting on a response, as he has his toothbrush in hand and a mouth full of toothpaste. He finishes brushing his teeth as Tsukiyama lists out his complaints against Nagachika. It’s all jealousy talking, Haise knows, and he doesn’t respond to it. If he responds to it, it would be as if he were acknowledging that he cared more than he wanted to about Tsukiyama’s feelings.

“He’s been an amazing help thus far,” he does say when he turns off the lights, and Tsukiyama sets his phone aside for the night. Haise doesn’t know when this became a thing and can’t find it in himself to fight against it or protest too much when Tsukiyama presses against his side and they fit awkwardly together.

Tsukiyama’s still complaining as he drifts off into sleep, and he tunes him out as he typically has to do because if he gives Tsukiyama an inch, the next thing he knows sleepovers are something that happen almost every damn day of the week. It’s like the next thing he knows, Tooru’s casually putting Tsukiyama’s clothes away in his room, and his closet space isn’t just his anymore. Tsukiyama is slowly leaving his mark anyplace he can, and sometimes it’s better to just not fight. To just passively aggressively resist it and resent it.

He just comforts himself with the fact that they’re not dating and that he can kick him out whenever he can, and that the status of their relationship is that they have none.

Haise just doesn’t have time to date around or even bother to do that when Tsukiyama would just threaten them away.

Haise comforts himself with that.

xxx

 

“Where did you come up with this?” Nagachika asks as he eats the breakfast that Haise cooked, “Each time I read it I’m constantly surprised by something new that I find. It’s really a beautiful story, Sasaki-san.”

“I had a dream,” he admits, “About a man who loses himself and the friend who watches it all happen.”

“It certainly seems more like a nightmare than dream.”

“Maybe it was both?” Haise eats his breakfast slowly, “Taro loses himself due to that scientist, but he’s still alive, he’s still . . . him at the end even having become the _Other_.”

“What made you decide to call it _The Dusk of Tanaka Taro_?”

“Well, because that’s what it is right? It’s the end of the day or the end of his life.” Haise laughs a bit, “Sorry, that sounded dramatic.”

He’s surprised to see Nagachika watching him and then Nagachika nods, “No, it seems like something you’d say.”

Nagachika, he’s coming to realize, seems to understand Haise more than anyone else he’s ever met. Nagachika is curious in that there’s so much that Haise doesn’t understand about him. According to Nagachika’s boss he had requested to have this position as Haise’s editor, and he just doesn’t understand why his book appealed to Nagachika so much.

 

xxx

 

The final edits are done, and Haise and Nagachika go out drinking at Nagachika’s suggestion. Haise hasn’t really drank with his peers before. Most of his drinking is done with his mom and dad when they’re both unwinding at the end of the month, and he leaves before Akira gets really bad. So, it’s a new experience drinking with Nagachika.

“C’mon,” Nagachika says, “I’ll call you ‘Haise-san’ and you can call me ‘Hideyoshi-san’.” They’ve both probably had far too much, but he can’t care too much.

“Still longer than my name if the point is to get us to be less formal. Hide? Yoshi? Shi-san?” He tosses out suggestions as he tosses back liquor.

“Hide works,” Nagachika says, “If I’m Hide, then you’re just Haise then?”

“Sure.” He agrees easily, and it’s just all too easy with Nagachika. There has to be a catch, but try as he might, and he’s been trying he can’t seem to find where Nagachika is anything less than what he says he is.

He isn’t sure when he lost his ability to believe that people could be this kind.

They end up drinking more and he’s completely wasted, and it’s not until Arima has him in bed that he realizes he spent the better part of an hour crying on Hide’s shoulder about his life. About everything from how rough Tooru’s adoption has been going to his situation with Tsukiyama Shuu.

“You’ve made it this far,” Hide had said, patting his back, “You can go just a bit further.”

 

xxx

 

Tooru’s adoption is approved, and the first person Haise calls is Hide, and it’s not until he puts down the phone after calling Arima and Akira, that he realizes something has changed in his life. And he can’t tell if it’s for the better or not, but Hide shows up with a cake, and he can see that the kids are being won over, and he can see that he has a decision to make.

Everyone likes Hide, even Akira and Arima and they never like anyone.

“Thank you for the cake,” Akira says. She’s fresh from court, and must be exhausted. But this is Tooru and she wouldn’t miss celebrating with them for the world. It’s a new birthday, and she has a pair of hand carved knives for him that Tooru accepts with a smile. It’s exciting and it’s so much more than that as Tooru doesn’t just become officially Haise’s, but they gather as a family to celebrate what it means to be them as a unit, as a whole. Accepting what works for them and getting rid of what doesn’t. Hide is there, cutting the cake, grinning and promising to buy Saiko a gift next time.

The children have fallen for Nagachika, call him Hide as easily as Haise does. Akira still calls him by his last name, and Arima as well, but Arima looks thoughtful and Akira looks like she’s thankful. Everyone seems to be waiting on Haise to do something, but for the life of him he doesn’t know what.

He walks Hide to the train station, telling him its the least he can do, knowing that he just has to call and Tsukiyama would come and get him. Hide hugs him as they part and tells him congratulations and that he knows he’ll continue to be a great father.

“Your kids are really something, Haise. You should be proud.”

Haise looks into his brown eyes, and he realizes that they’re standing too close, and that he has crossed a line somewhere. He’s just not so sure why it was to easy to do that with Hide.

Haise has a decision to make but he’s just not sure what it is.

 

xxx

 

 _“If you’re unhappy with your life, think about what you can take out of it that you wouldn’t miss._ ” Hide had said that on the night they went drinking and it has haunted Haise ever since. Tsukiyama invites him to a play and he goes because it’s free and it’s a performance he’s been wanting to see. He has a decision to make, and he has his happiness to consider. Tsukiyama doesn’t make him happy. He stresses him out, Haise’s always afraid that one day he’s going to wake up and his entire family is dead because of him. Tsukiyama is someone that he can easily remove from his life, and he opens up his mouth to say as much when Tsukiyama smiles and kisses him.

Then, Haise remembers how his closet space is almost completely equally divided into his and Tsukiyama’s clothing, how he’s not even sure that the underwear he’s wearing is his, that Tsukiyama drove him here, that there’s so much work involved in ending this. So, he lets him kiss him, even half heartedly kisses him back because the curtain is rising and intermission is over, and he doesn’t have time for long conversations about breaking up when they’re not even dating in the first place. He can’t end what doesn’t exist, he tells himself. And so he stays silent.

 

xxx

 

“So,” Hide says, and then continues quickly, “I want to keep working with you, Haise. Are you fine with me being your editor like on a regular basis? I know I’m a newcomer, but I think I did a pretty good job.”

This, Haise realizes, is the decision he has to make. Hide had apparently begged for the chance to edit, the head editor had told Haise back then, and if he wasn’t up to the standards that Haise wanted, he could always request a more experienced editor. He had told the man that he’d think about it. And he has been thinking about it. Hide has worked so hard for his sake, and done so much that Haise can’t imagine his life and his future books without Hide’s support. Just like Tanaka Taro needed Moriyama Akira to tell his story, he needs Hide to be there for him as he goes through life.

“I have a story,” he says, “About a cannibal, do you want to read it?”

Hide grins at him, and Haise feels himself giving just a bit of his heart to him.  


End file.
